I was first introduced to Tipping Culture in World of Warcraft. When a Mage made you a portal from Ironforge to Darnassus, you gave him some gold for the trouble. When an Alchemist used his 24-hour Arcanite Transmute cooldown for you, you supplied the materials and gave him a tip as thanks.
Some of those made more sense in earlier versions of the game. Whereas now the game has been streamlined/gutted so that every class learns the best version of their spells without needing some special drop to learn the spell.
Mages needed not only reagents to create a portal but in some cases certain spells that people would benefit from like that required rare drops that could be very difficult to have drop or expensive to buy on the AH. Table of Refreshment for example in TBC was like this and needed 2 book drops to learn the original version and upgraded one that everyone wanted for raiding purposes. Mages making food/water for people going out questing was a thing since Vanilla and I remember doing this a lot at lower levels/Vanilla times because you had to create both food and water individually and sometimes manually select lower level versions of the spell so that whomever you were giving the items to could actually use them since they had level requirements. There was also the issue that you wouldn't always be making a full stack of 20 per craft, sometimes you only made 8 so had to do multiple crafts of one, then again multiple crafts of another. It would take a while and mounted up if you were doing this for multiple people.
So in some cases demanding/expecting a mage to give you the best conjured food/water for free in those days would be considered rude by the community at large. Now the conjure refreshment spell even changes depending on party status so you get personal crafts if solo but make the table if grouped.
Portals were the same, mages used to need reagents for those and if they ran out then they had to restock in a few specific locations. While this would be inevitable at least if the mats were covered by others requiring the service it was less of a hassle. Also originally those portals needed trained AT the city destination. If you wanted the Darnassus portal you needed to get to Darnassus yourself first and learn it in the main temple. Now you can simply learn every teleport and portal from the same NPC in Stormwind or any other city.
In part that's why from TBC onwards hub cities with portal networks became THE place people wanted toons/alts sent to set their hearthstone. Even if you skipped the intro to Shattrath you could set your HS in Lower City, or with the Aldor or Scryer and then simply HS back there and use the network to get to your faction cities providing the HS cooldown was ready. Dalaran in Wrath did this again, Vale in MOP, Ashran in WOD, Dalaran again in Legion, Boralus/Troll City in BFA, Oribos in SL, and Valdrakken in DF. It was so popular Blizz even started removing portals when the content was no longer current content, but only in BFA when all the various portals in Legion Dalaran were still that useful, which along with other things in BFA pissed off a lot of players at losing even more QoL from the game that had been going for years now.
(lol at the number of typos I had flag in that last paragraph because of all the city names)
Streamlining/gutting continues with faster HS cooldowns so hubs are more readily accessibly, even faster if in a guild - but guild perks are no longer something to grind because that was streamlined too - so the only things people tend to tip on now are crafts and even then it's more of a commission at times considering the mats that might be needed, rarity of the recipes involved, or simple service provided.
When I was playing on a private DF server I wouldn't ask for tips on work orders if all the mats were provided, it cost me basically nothing other than being on that alt that knew the recipe and clicking a few boxes either in my own time or something more specific like when helping someone make the legendary parts for the axe or Drac'thyr staff since coordinating that sped things up. And in those cases I learned a recipe for free on my alts anyway which my own alts could then benefit from if I ever got the weapons myself, which I didn't but it was still benefiting me slightly. Also meant I could do the crafts again for others. In most cases where I offered those free crafts as long as mats were provided I got a tip of several thousand gold, which wasn't really important on the private server for a list of reasons, but it was still something done entirely by the other player, and I would often get returning customers because of this. The Mail wrists that were BIS for Hunters, Shaman, and Evokers that season 2 added weren't something many bothered learning for whatever reason but having those alts myself I learned the recipe and made them for my alts. I also made them for some players in s2 a few times, upgraded them if they got better mats, and then later again upgraded them in s3 and s4 because the players knew I had the recipe and would do the recrafts for them if they had the mats.
Similarly I knew someone that knew the Elemental Lariat recipe and would do it for free if you provided the mats. This was a recipe that in retail had raiding guilds offering the literal gold cap to anyone that had it dropped in the early weeks of launch because it was that good for most of the expansion. Meanwhile the player I knew didn't charge extra just because he knew it while others would be and charging thousands of gold because everyone wanted it throughout s1 to s3 with it being still good in s4 but less so due to how stats were for some classes at that point.
and I have to fear if I would get a sympathetic GM if the guy just ran off with my stuff.
These days private and official server alike they just offload that responsibility to the player that made the mistake. Vanilla/TBC GMs are ones I can remember being actually helpful and engaging. Now it's just a crapshoot if you even get one rather than an automated response telling you to go pound sand.
Some of those made more sense in earlier versions of the game. Whereas now the game has been streamlined/gutted so that every class learns the best version of their spells without needing some special drop to learn the spell.
Mages needed not only reagents to create a portal but in some cases certain spells that people would benefit from like that required rare drops that could be very difficult to have drop or expensive to buy on the AH. Table of Refreshment for example in TBC was like this and needed 2 book drops to learn the original version and upgraded one that everyone wanted for raiding purposes. Mages making food/water for people going out questing was a thing since Vanilla and I remember doing this a lot at lower levels/Vanilla times because you had to create both food and water individually and sometimes manually select lower level versions of the spell so that whomever you were giving the items to could actually use them since they had level requirements. There was also the issue that you wouldn't always be making a full stack of 20 per craft, sometimes you only made 8 so had to do multiple crafts of one, then again multiple crafts of another. It would take a while and mounted up if you were doing this for multiple people.
So in some cases demanding/expecting a mage to give you the best conjured food/water for free in those days would be considered rude by the community at large. Now the conjure refreshment spell even changes depending on party status so you get personal crafts if solo but make the table if grouped.
Portals were the same, mages used to need reagents for those and if they ran out then they had to restock in a few specific locations. While this would be inevitable at least if the mats were covered by others requiring the service it was less of a hassle. Also originally those portals needed trained AT the city destination. If you wanted the Darnassus portal you needed to get to Darnassus yourself first and learn it in the main temple. Now you can simply learn every teleport and portal from the same NPC in Stormwind or any other city.
In part that's why from TBC onwards hub cities with portal networks became THE place people wanted toons/alts sent to set their hearthstone. Even if you skipped the intro to Shattrath you could set your HS in Lower City, or with the Aldor or Scryer and then simply HS back there and use the network to get to your faction cities providing the HS cooldown was ready. Dalaran in Wrath did this again, Vale in MOP, Ashran in WOD, Dalaran again in Legion, Boralus/Troll City in BFA, Oribos in SL, and Valdrakken in DF. It was so popular Blizz even started removing portals when the content was no longer current content, but only in BFA when all the various portals in Legion Dalaran were still that useful, which along with other things in BFA pissed off a lot of players at losing even more QoL from the game that had been going for years now.
(lol at the number of typos I had flag in that last paragraph because of all the city names)
Streamlining/gutting continues with faster HS cooldowns so hubs are more readily accessibly, even faster if in a guild - but guild perks are no longer something to grind because that was streamlined too - so the only things people tend to tip on now are crafts and even then it's more of a commission at times considering the mats that might be needed, rarity of the recipes involved, or simple service provided.
When I was playing on a private DF server I wouldn't ask for tips on work orders if all the mats were provided, it cost me basically nothing other than being on that alt that knew the recipe and clicking a few boxes either in my own time or something more specific like when helping someone make the legendary parts for the axe or Drac'thyr staff since coordinating that sped things up. And in those cases I learned a recipe for free on my alts anyway which my own alts could then benefit from if I ever got the weapons myself, which I didn't but it was still benefiting me slightly. Also meant I could do the crafts again for others. In most cases where I offered those free crafts as long as mats were provided I got a tip of several thousand gold, which wasn't really important on the private server for a list of reasons, but it was still something done entirely by the other player, and I would often get returning customers because of this. The Mail wrists that were BIS for Hunters, Shaman, and Evokers that season 2 added weren't something many bothered learning for whatever reason but having those alts myself I learned the recipe and made them for my alts. I also made them for some players in s2 a few times, upgraded them if they got better mats, and then later again upgraded them in s3 and s4 because the players knew I had the recipe and would do the recrafts for them if they had the mats.
Similarly I knew someone that knew the Elemental Lariat recipe and would do it for free if you provided the mats. This was a recipe that in retail had raiding guilds offering the literal gold cap to anyone that had it dropped in the early weeks of launch because it was that good for most of the expansion. Meanwhile the player I knew didn't charge extra just because he knew it while others would be and charging thousands of gold because everyone wanted it throughout s1 to s3 with it being still good in s4 but less so due to how stats were for some classes at that point.
These days private and official server alike they just offload that responsibility to the player that made the mistake. Vanilla/TBC GMs are ones I can remember being actually helpful and engaging. Now it's just a crapshoot if you even get one rather than an automated response telling you to go pound sand.